The Butt Of All The Best Jokes

Graham Lamb  

April 2009 - February 2016

It was truly an honor.

Everybody's Sweater

This is how I feel - flat and wanting to hide under a potted fern.  Bitey Whitey is gone.  We sent him to the university for an autopsy and are hoping they'll be able to tell us something that can help someone, hopefully not ever us again.

While I was sitting with him I did as much knitting as I could and got Elizabeth's second sleeve done and ready to attach to the body.

As I knit I decided that since I was never going to be able to make a Bitey Whitey sweater, he could be a part of this sweater, specifically the last three rows on that second sleeve. That in fact, all the sheep were all a part of all my sweaters.  Everyone here is a part of everything here.  My heart.  

While I waited for the vets to arrive yesterday I hustled to make sure that the sleeves were indeed the proper length and put all the stitches back on the needles to join everything together.  It somehow seemed important that he knew (and probably I knew) that we'd always be together, the sleeves on each others sweaters.

K2Tog (Knit Two Together)

The Early Risers

For Valentina

It's not really this dark.  Just a pretty light shift.

But is was very frosty. 

These are the early risers.  Keebs, Graham, Renny, Mia and  B. Willard.  Sherman, Marcel and Blizzard should be here.  Miss Ewenice frequently joined them as well.  Hank sits up on the hill, splitting the difference between his goofy sheep...and his other goofy sheep...that just don't get up at the crack of dawn. 

Lila and Blossom venture down.  They are usually out really early.  Graham was about 10 minutes late this morning too.  And now that I think about it, B. Willard had hay and wool and feathers stuck all over him...like a lampshade.  Was there a late night party in the barn last night? 

Sheep are so well insulated that frost will settle on their backs at night.  Hopefully you can see all the little sparkles.  As the sun rises it quickly melts and if it's cold enough, they'll steam.

Hank in a ray of sunshine.  Perfect.

Renny.  There's a lot of wool there...but maybe not that much wool ;-).

With the sun rise to my back.  Love, love, love early morning and late afternoon light.

"I love, love, love frosty grass!"  Keebs

Eventually the other sheep stumble out, but they don't move fast.

And Petunia loses patience with them and heads out.

And I head in to wrap my frosty hands around a hot cup of coffee. 

I'm Just Going To Get This Over With

Marcel's gone.  He had a third bladder stone attack over the weekend and this time couldn't fight it.  He was one of mine and Hank's favorite sheep.

When You Can't Think Of Anything To Say...

Post a picture of your [sheep].  

I'd like to say I'm okay.  But I'm not.  But I am I guess, really.  See?  Friends shouldn't let friends blog incoherently, so I'm just going to stick to posting a picture of Blossom and try hitting my "re-set" button one more time.  

Stupid button.  

Why don't these things ever work.

[I'm] Not Worthy

There's a funny (but accurate) story behind the title, but I'm afraid I'll electrocute myself on this stupid computer if I try to tell it.  Or any of the great stories about the big red horse.

I took pictures of his halter because I haven't decided what to do with it.  Part of me thinks it should be buried with him in the morning...and part of me wants to hang on to it so tight they'll have to bury it with me.  

My heart and soul.

A Good Morning

We had another awful scare with Marcel yesterday. I can't help but worry that he's a ticking time bomb and when I saw him in distress again, I feared the worst. I immediately gave him some banamine (anti-inflammatory/pain killer) to try and make him comfortable and hoped he'd once again be able to pass the crystal or stone.

He dripped urine for awhile, strained a couple times and then after about 2 hours I saw him pee a stream. The standoff was over. Marcel would probably rather I didn't share such personal details, but if it might help someone else, I'm going to put it out there. I watched him until dark, saw him pee a couple more times and finally headed to the house.



This morning he was out grazing with the rest of the early risers. Whew.



I call it the cottontail check. He has a white tail like a rabbit :-).



And once again the farm seems peaceful and happy.

The lab is not finding anything helpful. The soil and forage samples...don't get me started. I sent over a 2 gallon bucket and "it wasn't enough to test" and they want me to send samples to a lab in Ithaca, NY. Seriously? We have a big ag school here, why? I've had better results dealing with the folks at Purdue. Sigh.

In the meantime, these are the things we've changed here. Sort of a shotgun approach, so hard to say if it's helping and if so what part is helping...

1. Per a sheep nutritionist, all the boys are getting a dose of ammonium chloride every day for a week and then twice a week from here on out. Except Marcel, who has been getting it every day for almost a month and will probably continue every day forever. Normally AC is added into the feed source, but everyone here is way too fat to be eating that much grain. Besides, grain can actually cause the stones, so to me not worth the risk.

Here's my "recipe": 1 teaspoon ammonium chloride (looks like salt and you buy it at the feed store) mixed in 8 ccs of applesauce. At that concentration it will flow through a 12 cc syringe squirted into their mouths. I mix enough for everyone at that ratio and then draw out 10 ccs of mix for each sheep. Please keep in mind that I made this up and may be completely a bad method or the math could be off... Check with your vet. Remember, cookin' ain't my strong suit.

2. While normally you don't feed white salt alongside your sheep mineral mix that has salt included in it, we are wondering if, due to the super hot summer, they've needed more salt and to get that salt, they were over-consuming the mineral mix. They now have a plain white salt block next to their minerals and they are eating both.

Besides, the thinking is if they eat more salt, it should make them more thirsty so they drink more so they pee more. My whole life has become based around how much everyone is peeing and I'm sure everyone would be happy if the peepee stalking could stop. I know I would be, but I'm not sure I'll ever relax again.

3. We had changed from one sheep mineral to another company's sheep mineral. We've changed back to the old brand. Again, not sure if that has anything to do with it, but changing back at least makes me feel better. The lab looked at both labels and didn't see anything wrong.

I realize that part of our problem is we are keeping a lot of pet boys. The odds are stacked against us. The hard facts are boys usually end up on someone's table well before problems show up :-/. However, we'd gone almost 10 years without a problem and now to have so many...that's the mystery.

Beat Down

There is something wrong here. Very wrong. We have several vets and specialists working on it, we are testing everything we can think of, the prayer list grows and grows. This morning, after yet another long weekend, we had Blizzard put down.



Dear, turned out to be sweet, Blizzard.

We really have no ideas at this point, but if you are dealing with drought anywhere in the country, keep a close eye on your boys. I realize that our farm and real sheep farms are apples and oranges (we have a high percentage of old, fat "pet" wethers rather than working ewes and rams), but just in case it IS drought related...

Give your best friends an extra hug tonight. And some vanilla wafers. I'm so glad Blizzard learned to trust us enough to eat vanilla wafers with Blossom this spring. He was a good patient and trusted us to the end.